Broadcast is a radio communication service in which transmissions are intended for direct reception by the general public. This service may include sound transmissions, television transmissions or other types of transmissions. Broadcast Service is a “content package” suitable for simultaneous distribution to many recipients (potentially) without knowing the recipient. Either each receiver has similar receiving devices or the content package includes information that allows the client to process the content according to its current conditions. Mobile Broadcast Services refer to a broad range of broadcast services, which make use both of one-to-many communication paradigm and mobile networks and infrastructure. Recent developments in terminal technologies and digital broadcast systems enable broadcast services also in the mobile environment. This, in turn, enables distribution of rich, dynamic and bandwidth-consuming media broadcast content to a large mobile audience.
By the development of advanced digital broadcast technologies including OMA BOAST, DVB IPDC, 3GPP MBMS, 3GPP2BCMCS, ISDB-T, WLAN, and DAB, nowadays distribution of rich and dynamic broadcast content and related auxiliary data (e.g., advertisement) to many mobile terminals is possible. In digital broadcast area, metadata is generated by broadcast content or service providers prior to the distribution of the actual broadcast content. The metadata describing broadcast services and contents is usually called “service guide” or “program guide.” The service guide or program guide facilitates the terminals and the users to find out what broadcast service or contents are available at what time and how to access them. However, service guide or program guide is relatively static because they are produced by broadcast service providers before the actual broadcast content is broadcast. Making abrupt changes on the broadcast service or content and/or its related auxiliary data, or dynamically inserting supplementary data of broadcast service or content is not supported by using service guide or program guide.
On the other hand, notifications are also used in prior arts to notify general public emergencies or events related to broadcast services. Patent US20050227672, filed in 2004, discloses a system and method for delivery of civil emergency notifications to wireless devices in a predetermined geographical area. Patent US20030131356 more particularly discloses a system and method for alerting a viewer of a broadcast of a program. JP2003348560 discloses a method similar to US20030131356 for realizing broadcast start notification service to prevent a viewer from losing the opportunity of watching a program that the viewer wants to watch in real time.